Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein), writing at a place with the puerile name of “Gawker”—come to think of it, only peeping Toms could reason so badly—demands “Arrest Climate-Change Deniers.”

Arrest. As in detain by force and incarcerate. For how long, pretty boy never says. Deniers. As in those who have rationally concluded that more than two decades of busted forecasts can only mean that apocalyptic global warming must be false.

Whinestein is in bad company. He joins professorRod Lamberts, who says the ends justify the means when dealing with “deniers”, and professor and Queen of Smug Lawrence Torcello who is convinced dark forces have banded together against him.

There used to be a name for these sorts of walking wounded, men whose brains have ceased performing their customary duties, but in modern psychology everything and nothing is a disease, so there is no point in using it.

“Man-made climate change kills a lot of people,” says Whinestein. Now it is useless telling this overgrown child that this statement is laughably false. He has constructed a wall of Legos under his mother’s kitchen table to block information like this from seeping in. There he sits, crouched in his safe gloomy murk, aligning his toy soldiers as they battle for All Mankind. If you needed proof of the danger of reading comic books past the age of twenty, this is it.

A man would have to have cheese between the ears to post in block letters above a picture the words “Consensus: 97% of climate scientist agree” and fail to realize that therefore there are 3% of climate scientists who disagree with the “Consensus.” We could therefore ask Whinestein how many of these scientists he would cart off to concentration camps if we didn’t already know his mathematical skills do not allow him to count past his twelve toes.

And anyway, that 97% is overblown by an order of magnitude. Dear activists: this means the number is too big; hold your arms apart to get an idea how big. Whinestein says he wouldn’t shoot actual scientists who disagree with his non-considered opinion, only those who repeat what the scientists who disagree with him say. Make sense? Expecting sense from a progressive is like standing on Wilshire Boulevard awaiting the Stage Coach. No matter how earnestly you desire it, it isn’t going to come.

Like Lamberts and Torcello, Whinestein believes he has stumbled across the Protocols of the Elders of Oil. Just like the 300-pound Wellesley graduate (major: Womyn’s Studies) who swears she was abducted by Greys and probed lovingly over a long weekend, Whinestein is on the corner screaming, “The truth is out there!” at passersby.

Conspiracy is always the first refuge of zealots. The ignorant, being ignorant, are unable to fathom that others can’t see the hidden patterns which are so plain to them. Those who disagree must be evil, and are therefore fair game for the firing squad.

I’ve told this so many times I’m sick of repeating it. Just once more. Whereas Whinestein is well compensated for his fact-free global warming rants, Yours Truly has never accepted consideration of any kind for his advice. Not that I didn’t and don’t want to. But nobody ever offered it and those I asked said come back next week—but next week never came. On the contrary, my reasoned skepticism has cost me plenty.

Just last week, I had a job lined up that would have been perfect. My dream job. But the organization came back, “Sorry, we don’t want to be associated with deniers or denial.” Me they liked. But they were frightened of foamy-mouthed knuckle-draggers like Whinestein. Last thing a businessman wants is to come to work and see monkeys ooking and eeking and swarming the shrubbery lining the parking lot. It’s a distraction.

I thus invite pretty boy Whinestein or lusty Lamberts or twiggy Torcello or any Gaiaian caped crusader—readers, please email these…these entities for me—to name the time and place and I’ll be there. There they can try their luck arresting me.

Of course they want “deniers” arrested. Then they have the field to themselved, can make the rules and declare the winning score before the game even starts. Plus, they think everyone is afraid of being arrested (which is odd since ecofanatics often seem to LIKE being arrestedâ€¦.) so it’s to their advantage to bully with that threat.

In all of this, I must wonder why we don’t have classes on how to bully in schools and give out prizes to the kid that most intimidates everyone into believing the sun shines at night and gets the most kids to swear this is true. He’d be a prime mover in the future, don’t you think? Right now, bullying is the way truth is decided, so why not teach people how to do it right? We already have a huge pool of cowards out there as potential training targets-basically any business will do, as noted by Briggs. The more outlandish the bullying, the higher the probablility of success.

Think about it. Obviously, if the witches had any power whatsoever, they wouldn’t waste their time gallivanting around on broomsticks, fellating Satan and cursing cows with sour milk. They’re getting burned right and left, for Christ’s sake! Priorities! No, they’d turn the tables and lay some serious voodoo on the witch-hunters. In a country where anyone who speaks out against the witches is soon found dangling by his heels from an oak at midnight with his head shrunk to the size of a baseball, we won’t see a lot of witch-hunting and we know there’s a serious witch problem. In a country where witch-hunting is a stable and lucrative career, and also an amateur pastime enjoyed by millions of hobbyists on the weekend, we know there are no real witches worth a damn.

Quoting Isaac Asimov, from memory: The definition of academic freedom is independent income. Although since Asimov supported the environmental movement uncritically, I’m not sure how free his opinions were.

According to Lubos Motl the number of agitators that are frightening business is surprisingly small.

It is also insidious how they name it: “Climate Change Deniers” (first, it is no more “Global Warming Deniers”…). You see, I am scientist and from the pure and quality science I agree strongly with the fact that climate is changing (and that Earth have warmed up in last 200+ yrs or so). However, these types would still want to arrest me too… Because what they really mean is “Arrest all people who do not think that we are in the hottest period on Earth, ever, which is caused by humans and which can be corrected only by Big Government control, redistribution and oppression [of those who disagree]”.
My scientific opinion (and believe me, number of scientist who believe this based on very strong facts is way, way higher than 3%… I’d say 3% dare to be open about it, sad but consequence of current “free” market in science) is based on long term ice core records for temperature, CO2 and Be as single source, highly studied, highly understood, precise and repeated/repeatable source of data on the issue.

Conclusion: Climate is changing. Always. Even faster many times in the last 10000yrs than currently. Expecting unchangeable climate is same as expecting unchangeable weather. (Demanding unchangeable climate is similarly foolish).
Earth temperature is rising in the last 200+ yrs. But from what levels, where is it now on long term scale, what is causing it and – does it matter?
It is rising from 10000yrs lows of “Little Ice Age”. Not from some universal normal. Despite 200+yrs of warming we are still in 10% coldest years in human history and more (in last 10000yrs). Not at some unseen heights. Not even close to 10000yrs average, never mind highs.
In last 250000yrs we see dozens of periods with CO2 dramatically rising while Earth T is dramatically dropping. In last 250000yrs CO2 increase NEVER occurred coincidentally with or before temperature rise. It was always consequence of T increase, CO2 rise following on average 400-700 yrs later. CO2 increase in last 250000yrs was always consequence not cause of global warming. Be-isotope concentrations in 250000yrs old strata tell another story – they fit hand-in-glove with all swings of Earth temperature. Earth warms – coincidentally with it Be in the strata raises. At the same time. Concentration of Be traces distribution of high energy particles hitting the Earth. More of these, warmer the Earth. Effect that seem to beat CO2 impact for at least two to three magnitudes. Effect experimentally confirmed by famous (“shushed-up”) CERN Cloud Experiment of 2011… Hence, yes, CO2 concentrations are raising from human activity but are as consequential to Earth temperature raise as whistling impacts noise level of a jet engine.
Finally, the worse for these AGW pushers: no matter what causes current Earth warming, plot human civilization vs. temperature and one thing is striking – humans do better in warm peaks (and no, we are NOT in a warm peak, further 300yrs of warming at this pace would bring us to 10000yrs AVERAGE). Minoans, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Medieval boom,… temperature peaks. Dark ages, strife, wars, decline (Napoleon, Hitler,terrorists) – all in 10% coldest years. We should welcome and be happy about global warming as record shows human prosperity rises with it. But maybe that’s the worry of these types – if there is prosperity, how to create crisis to be controlled by them?

MattS,
Did you miss this “All the data I can access are consistent with the hypothesis that all these insane anti-skeptic “fireworks” you can see on the Internet and in the media are the result of an orchestrated campaign by 25 or fewer unhinged alarmist trolls, at least 90% of the “fireworks”.”? These people are agitators and business has responded to them.

They’re losing the battle and lashing out. This is a feather in your cap as far as I’m concerned. Keep it up. We need people like you. AGW legislation, carbon credits etc. will devastate the poorest people in the world. It’s a outrageous misallocation of resources away from where good could be done. Think about the ban on DDT and see what people like this are capable of and what they celebrate. You’re doing the right thing, but no one promised doing the right thing would be easy.

There are always some ‘unhinged folks’ wandering around but the drama that surrounds ‘global warming’ (later AGW and now climate change and climate disruption) has gone on long enough and with enough vituperation ladled about to convince me that something is seriously ‘rotten in the state of Denmark’. By seriously rotten I mean more than the rantings of “25 or fewer unhinged alarmist trolls.”

At the time of Galileo (c. 1640) there were probably less than 5,000 people in Europe with the educational background to understand the evidence suggesting that the earth moved around the sun.

In theory this is not the situation today in Europe or North America. There are 100,000s with a background in engineering or physics or statistics and other fields that should allow them to have some understanding of the claims of climate scientists or the IPCC (the UN panel).

Perhaps 99% of those with some, or all of the necessary background, are busy with careers and families and so not able to spend time on the topic. More disturbing is the fact that almost all ‘scientific societies’ have joined in to say the evidence is incontrovertible.

Either there is something seriously wrong with the educational system in most economically developed societies or governments and their institutions (including scientific ones) have been corrupted.

One problem is the lamentable lack of numeracy in the world of working journalists. That may contribute to the rot but it doesn’t explain it.

My personal view (guess) is that the educational system(s) are more seriously flawed than I ever imagined and governments have been corrupted in ways not seen before.

Whatever the cause of the rot it is a depressing state of affairs and goes well beyond the rantings of a few “unhinged trolls.”

As consolation, if only to myself, I end with a quote from one of my intellectual heroes –

â€œIt is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesnâ€™t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.â€ â€“ Richard Feynman

Interesting article, Scotian. Thank you. I knew a guy who said the only thing drug awareness education did for him was teach him which drugs were the good ones. I suppose that extends to bullying, too. I really had in mind actual classes on how to intimidate and insult your way to the top of “truth” brigade, but I’ll take what I can get!

I can only conclude the believers in AGW are psychotic. All their predictions have been untrue but they still insist they are right. Dr. Hoyt kept a scorecard of their predictions. None of them have occurred.http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/climate-change.htm

I wonder if supporters of Obamacare can be called “actuarial science deniers.”

At the time of Galileo (c. 1640) there were probably less than 5,000 people in Europe with the educational background to understand the evidence suggesting that the earth moved around the sun.

Especially since the evidence as of 1640 was against geomobility. That’s why geostability deniers were few on the ground. Between the publication of De revolutionibus and ca. 1610 there were a total of 10 Copernicans in Europe, including mystical loons and humanists. (A somewhat larger number accepted the math as an instrumental model without accepting the model premises as being physically real.)

Either there is something seriously wrong with the educational system in most economically developed societies or governments and their institutions (including scientific ones) have been corrupted.

In his farewell address, Dwight Eisenhower warned against the government-science complex, pointing out that whoever pays the piper will eventually call the tunes and as science became more dependent on government money, government objectives would eventually channel scientific research.

Bravo, you have attracted the attention of a minion of the Cult of Calamitous Climate.
Enjoy.
Their “Howard Camping” moment is upon them, the failure to recruit more believers and the continuos shrinkage of the convinced, has the zealots bellowing in the streets.
Sort of like steers mating, not much of benefit will develop.
As the members work their way through the 5 stages, there will be some risk of accidental injury to outsiders,it is painful to go from saviour of the planet to gullible fool.
A lot of denial is necessary to prolong the faith.
However I do find the threats from these people amusing.. lets see most persons, concerned about mans grand effect upon the earth, of my acquaintance, are of the non-tool using persuasion, mechanically inept at best, also seem to be anti-gun ownership as well.
Now those cynical of grand schemes to save us all, that universally demand we surrender our property and freedom in the name of salvation, are quite the opposite.
So these desperate dregs of the dead climate hoax, have to threaten persons who mock them, with the might of government, as the more rational people have them outgunned, outclassed and totally out skilled.
There is something of pathos in these creatures uttering threats.

Far be it for me to indulge in a spot of ad hominem, but since people such as the boy Weinstein are calling for incarceration of their ideological opponents for thinking thoughts deemed verboten by the (incredibly inaccurately misnomered) “intelligentsia”, I must inquire: “pretty-boy”??

Now I don’t claim to hail from a land of strapping young men and nubile young ladies–I reside in northern New England, so perish that thought–but even by the already low standards set forth by my Yankee neighbors, I have to wonder just how homely the folks in Mr.Briggs’ neck of the woods are for the boy Weinstein to rate as a “pretty-boy”.

(Perhaps this is some philosophical term of art or subtle slam at the boy Weinstein’s lack of what any sighted individual might reasonably regard as “pretty” and, if so, I do apologize if my irony sensor is perhaps a bit off-kilter–that’s most likely from thinking all of these disallowed thoughts about the climate, human sexuality, and how “pretty” a cell mate of the boy Weinstein might find his mouth, and coming to arrestable conclusions in each case.)

Congrats!! You have done a superb job. Sorry about job opportunity. I worked in DC and now I don’t.

This new trend is serious.

First, they denigrate and dehumanize those they oppose…so when dehumanizing action is taken against people, it is ok because they are not human or they are a threat. It is the same ploy used over eons.

But, if we are going to prosecute and criminalize those
who promote false lies and politicized science, then lets discuss this:

3 million people a YEAR, mostly women cooking over wood stoves, that die from indoor air pollution….because The Green Movements does not want poor people to have LPG, propane or electric.

2.2 million people die every year including 760,000 children…because we are unable to put in electric or LPG to run drinking water and sanitary systems.

850,000 people die every year because refrigerated vaccines cannot be maintained.

These are facts. These are human beings dying here and now.

I want to see measurable and verifiable facts as to how many people have died from an anthropomorphic storm, flood, drought and then explain why the storm, flood, drought (or decline in hurricanes) down the street/state/country is not.

I want to see the drop in number of people that were dying from the power plants in Ohio now that the plants are closed.

Eh, they can’t. They charge around on public rumor opinion like the posters who correctly brought up the witch hunts.

I googled Adam Weinstein. Very interesting. He’s former military. Wrote for Mother Jones magazine, and other liberal sources.
What’s amazing though is how much he looks like “Private Gomer Pyle”, aka; Private Leonard, from the movie “Full Metal Jacket”. From what I read in this article, he may even exihibit certain similar personality characteristics as Pyle. How bout it Pyle? “7—.—62 milimeter”. Full—Metal— Jacket”. “I am—- in a world—- of shat”.

To quote Matthew Modine in that movie;” I think Leonard is a section eight”.

It’s interesting that the obviously ultra-liberal Weinstein isn’t pointing his finger at the industries and companies that send American jobs to countries that essentially have no climate laws that they enforce. China being the top of the heap. That country is becoming the coal burning capital of the world. Weinstein, I’m sure, couldn’t possibly point his finger at his Marxist handlers that are empowering that Communist empire.

For a criminal conviction, each element of a crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, each element of the charge would be shown to be discredited, not proven at all. The exception is that a lawful act, climate research, was committed, however, that act was performed in a lawful manner.

I raised the converse questions:1) Are climate mitigation policies increasing deaths among the extreme poor?
2. Are climate mitigation policies reducing economic development, thus causing more deaths than expected benefits under business as usual among the extreme poor?
with links to confirming evidence.

Either there is something seriously wrong with the educational system in most economically developed societies or governments and their institutions (including scientific ones) have been corrupted.

You left out the option: Both. That’s what my money’s on. Tho’ the corruption of the scientific establishment is probably the greater disorder. Peer review is today a fig leaf for consensus—i.e., orthodox—science. To compare today’s intellectual climate to that ruled over by the Medieval Church would be to unfairly attribute a power to the Church of which she could only have dreamed.

If you lost a bunch of money by selling your seaside abode based on Al Gore telling you the ice caps were going to melt by 2013, he should be the guy going to jail. All skeptics do is doubt. The guys making the hasty predictions should be liable if anyone is.